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Archive for October, 2012

Who knew? Tomorrow’s vote on OGB privatization appears close; opponents, proponents conducting intensive lobbying

Posted in Attorney General, Budget, Civil Service, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization on October 17, 2012| 10 Comments »

Members of the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee were being lobbied heavily by both sides on Wednesday in the final hours leading up to Thursday’s joint committee meeting to consider the privatization of the Louisiana Office of Group Benefits (OGB).

State Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) said on Wednesday that she was concentrating on members of the House Appropriations Committee “because the concurrence of both committees is required.”

She said by mid-morning there appeared to be four undecided votes on the House committee.

“We need two votes,” she said, to block the move by Gov. Piyush Jindal. “Neither side can say it has the votes,” she added.

For those who might be interested in getting in their two-cents worth, here are the links to the names, phone numbers and email addresses for the members of each of the committees:

http://house.louisiana.gov/H_Cmtes/H_Cmte_AP.asp

http://senate.legis.louisiana.gov/Finance/Assignments.asp

The privatization, which would have Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana (BCBS) take over the operations of the agency’s Preferred Provider Organization (PPO), was approved by the State Civil Service Commission in August but State Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) requested and got an attorney general’s opinion that said the administration must obtain the concurrence of the legislature to finalize the transfer.

BCBS already serves as the third party administrator (TPA) for OGB’s HMO program.

OGB has accrued a fund balance in excess of $500 million over the past six years since Tommy Teague took over as director of OGB. But he was fired on April 15, 2011 when he did not get on board the Jindal privatization plan quickly enough. His successor lasted only six weeks before he, too, was gone.

Jindal has claimed that a private TPA would be able to run the various health and life insurance plans of about 225,000 state employees, retirees and their dependents.

A Legislative Auditor’s report, however, said that privatization could lead to increased health insurance premiums because of a private insurer’s higher administrative and marketing costs, its requirement to pay taxes on income and its need to realize an operating profit. The state does not pay taxes nor is it required to turn a profit.

The Jindal administration has employed tactics bordering on the clandestine in efforts to shore up its position. At one point it even refused to release a report by New Orleans-based Chaffe & Associates with which it contracted to determine the “fair market value” of OGB’s business.

When a copy of the report was released, however, questions arose immediately because of conflicting dates given by the Division of Administration (DOA) as to its receipt date and by the fact that none of the pages of the report was date-stamped.

DOA routinely date stamps every page of documents it receives to indicate the date and time the documents were received.

This led to speculation that there may have been two Chaffe reports. Even so, the one that was leaked to the Baton Rouge Advocate said that a private insurer would be required to build in the extra costs of taxes and profits when setting premiums.

Once considered a slam-dunk for approval, the vote now appears much closer on the eve of the meeting of the two committees.

Much of the reason for the change may have to do with growing resentment on the part of legislators who have seen hospitals and/or prisons closed in their districts, actions they say were taken by the administration without the benefit of giving lawmakers a heads-up.

Jindal, in closing prisons and hospitals, has done so while leaving it up to area legislators to try and explain to constituents why they will be out of work or why health care will be either cut back or unavailable.

Only this week, notices went out to 41 employees at E.A. Conway Hospital in Monroe that they would no longer be employed after Nov. 30—just in time for the Christmas holidays. Twenty-five of those were nurses.

Similar cutbacks have taken place at health care facilities all over the state and in August, Jindal abruptly announced the closure of Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville, effective this month, throwing some 300 employees out of work.

Moreover, with the earlier closure of a mental health facility in New Orleans, the entire area of Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St.

Bernard, Tangipahoa, Washington and St. Tammany will be without access to mental health treatment at a state facility.

The proposed privatization of OGB will put about 120 workers out of work.

“It’s going down to the wire,” Jackson said of the vote to turn the PPO over to BCBS. “It’s going to be close.”

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, LSU, Notable Quotables on October 16, 2012| 3 Comments »

“The layoff is necessary after other budgetary measures were taken, as a layoff avoidance measure, that did not meet the total dollars needed to match the reduction.”

—Dr. Robert Barish, chancellor of University Medical Center in Shrevrport, justifying the layoffs of 41 employees of E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe in an Oct. 15 letter to State Civil Service Director Shannon Templet.

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Merry Christmas! E.A. Conway Hospital in Monroe receives word that 41 employees to be laid off effective November 30

Posted in Budget, Economy, Governor's Office, Health Care, Jobs, Layoffs, LSU, Revenue, State Agencies on October 16, 2012| 4 Comments »

A new survey by 24/7 Wall Street has revealed that the Monroe Metropolitan Area, which includes 11 northeast Louisiana Parishes, is the sixth-poorest metropolitan area in the U.S. and at 27.9 percent, has the eighth-highest percentage of households living below the poverty line.

Accordingly, The LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport sent out notices to 41 employees of E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe Tuesday that they will no longer have jobs after Nov. 30.

Merry Christmas to E.A. Conway employees who will soon be unemployed. Great timing.

University Medical Center (UMC) Chancellor Dr. Robert Barish simultaneously notified E.A. Conway employees and State Civil Service Director Shannon Templet that 25 of the 41 employees targeted for layoffs are nurses.

Others include four police officers, two nursing assistants, two administrative coordinators, and (one each) respiratory care therapist, speech/audiologist specialist, EKG technician, radiologic technician, social worker, electriction, mobile equipment operator and printing operator.

The layoffs, Barish said, are the result of a reduction in federal Medicaid dollars to the state and are necessary “after other budgetary measures were taken, as a layoff avoidance measure, that did not meet the total dollars needed to match the reduction.”

The overall impact of the layoffs and cutbacks to E.A. Conway will be $8.5 million, he said.

With such a high poverty rate, many of the 178,000 residents of the Monroe Metropolitan Area rely on Conway for health care. Now, those health care services will either be cut back drastically or delayed for many who need them most.

Merry Christmas to tens of thousands of northeast Louisiana residents who will soon find medical care more difficult to obtain.

While median income across the nation decreased by $642 per year from 2010 to 2011, it went into a free-fall in the Monroe Metropolitan Area, plummeting by $5,434.

At the same time, the area’s poverty rate rose by an eye-popping seven percentage points. Moreover, the 11.4 percent of households earning less than $10,000 in 2011 was the third-highest percentage of all metropolitan areas.

The cutbacks and layoffs at Conway would appear to have been implemented with no planning and little consideration given to the needs of the areas served just as other policy moves have been made.

The Jindal administration, for example, privatized the John Hainkel Home and Rehabilitation Center in New Orleans in 2011 and in June of this year, Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein quietly notified the facility that it was revoking its license, ostensibly because of deficiencies found during inspections.

A more likely reason for the action is that 73 of the home’s 82 patients pay for their care at the Hainkel Home through state Medicaid funding. Ergo, close the facility and if those 73 patients are unable to enter another facility that accepts Medicaid patients, Jindal gets to cut Medicaid costs in a furtive move that flies under the radar.

And it won’t be a simple task for those patients to find a new care provider. The Hainkel Home is one of the few remaining options in New Orleans for Medicaid patients and Veterans Administration patients. Most nursing homes will not accept Medicaid and V.A. patients and are actively purging current Medicaid and V.A. patients from their populations.

So, while Piyush Jindal continues to push for corporate tax breaks and exemptions for campaign contributors, he embarks on a campaign of slashing budgets and cutting services as a means of making up revenue lost by what can only be described as to poor—or perhaps contrived—administrative decisions.

Such are the methods of the Piyush Jindal administration.

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π-yush has the job he wants–again: absentee governor will serve as ‘leader’ of nation’s Republican governors in 2013

Posted in Budget, Campaign Contributions, Economy, Education, Governor's Office, Health Care, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Transparency on October 15, 2012| 6 Comments »

Gov. Piyush Jindal had barely recovered from the bitter disappointment of being snubbed for a spot on Mitt Romney’s ticket than he was off and running for yet another national office—that of president.

His preference these days seems to be anything to avoid addressing the real problems that face Louisiana.

For a man who insists that he has the job he wants, he certainly seems to devote a minimal amount of time doing it.

Jindal’s travel miles this year alone have surpassed those of the James Brown extended post mortem farewell tour of a few years back.

Piyush is on the road again more than Willie Nelson.

His campaign appearances rival in number those of President Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney combined—and he’s not even an official candidate for anything. Yet.

He has the job he wants, which apparently is making more public appearances than the Harlem Globetrotters.

He’s more difficult to locate than Sasquatch.

When it comes to answering reporters’ questions, Jindal makes the late Marcel Marceau seem like a chatterbox.

So now, with the sound and fury of the vice presidential selection process behind him, he goes and gets himself picked to head up the Republican Governors Association next year—a job that will no doubt necessitate his absence from the state even more, if that’s possible.

The position is a plum in that it theoretically gives him a leg up on the Republican president nomination in 2020 (or 2016, should Romney lose in November).

He will chair the organization in 2013 and will be followed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie the following year. The post is considered a springboard to higher office. Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry each served as chairman prior to launching their presidential campaigns.

The Associated Press speculated that the position could help Piyush gain momentum and support for a future White House bid, “if he’s interested.”

If he’s interested?

That’s like saying a hyena will attack a wildebeest if he’s hungry.

The same AP story notes that in five-plus years as Louisiana’s absentee governor, he has promoted his book, given campaign speeches, attended fundraisers and Republican events in 39 states and the nation’s capital. He has managed to pop up in key presidential primary or caucus states like New Hampshire and Iowa on numerous occasions—sometimes even being asked by the locals to leave. Quickly.

More than a third of his 160 or so out-of-state trips have taken place since January.

Ironically, most of his travels have been to support state candidates or Republican causes and to collect campaign contributions for Piyush Jindal.

His campaign trips on behalf of Romney, on the other hand, are merely an afterthought.

Rather like his occasional attention to matters in Louisiana—little insignificant matters like budget shortfalls, cuts to state hospitals, litigation over his education and retirement reform packages in Louisiana and growing resentment on the part of legislators over the closures of prison and health care facilities.

So basically, he believes he received a mandate in last year’s underwhelming re-election vote of 67 percent of 20 percent of the voters—against only token opposition, no less.

Piyush may want to consider the fact that 80 percent of the voters yawned their way to a state of languid indifference on the question of whether or not he should be awarded a second term.

And he’s going to try and parlay those results into becoming leader of the free world?

But he must first prove himself a leader of the nation’s Republican governors.

If his leadership of Louisiana is an indication of his capabilities, it should be fun to watch—if you like watching a delusional political wannabe.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Governor's Office, Higher Education, LSU, Notable Quotables, Privatization, Public Records on October 15, 2012| 2 Comments »

“The deliberative process is being invoked by the clients with respect to the various drafts and any communication involving those drafts.”

—LSU attorney Lloyd Lunsford, parroting the Jindal party line in defending the denial of access to public records by invoking deliberative process.

“LSU administrators asserted the deliberative process privilege based upon my recommendation after independent research.”

—LSU attorney Shelby McKenzie, on denying media access to public records based on deliberative process.

“As executive counsel, I have discussions about the law with LSU’s legal counsel and other agencies. At the end of the day, it’s the agency’s decision to determine how they respond.”

—Elizabeth Murrill, Gov. Piyush Jindal’s executive counsel, attempting to claim that the administration does not have a hand in day to day operations of LSU. (Murrill, however, demanded to review LSU documents requested by LouisianaVoice before their release.)

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